Vocal Tract Synthesizer #MusicMonday

I just re-discovered this website from a few years ago and it is…unusual. Called Pink Trombone it lets you alter different elements to synthesize the sounds of the human voice. It’s eerie.

From Motherboard:

It’s the creation of Neil Thapen, a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

The app is built to explore how speech is formed in the throat and mouth, from the sound generated at the glottis to each part of the soft palate, hard palate, lips, tongue and nasal cavity. Depending on where you click or press, the mouth lets out a steady, slightly bored scream, or a nasally babble that almost sounds like words (though I still haven’t been able to make it say anything distinct—motivation to keep trying!). Moving the tongue and pitch around produces vowels, while touching the lips and oral cavity produces consonant.

Try it for yourself!